Kim kardashian’s selfie book was a flop — but here’s why that’s okay

Social media maven and selfie queen Kim Kardashian engineered a massive hype marketing scheme this year around the release of her coffee table book, “Selfish.” But just how many of Kim’s loyal and selfie-hungry disciples went out and actually bought a hard copy of the book? Well, the numbers are finally in… and they ain’t too pretty.

While those stats technically make “Selfish” a financial flop, a rep for Kim’s publisher, Rizzoli New York, told Radar, “The Bookscan number is not inaccurate but it represents a small segment of our sales overall, which are very strong in non-bookstore specialty retailers, and international sales, neither of which report to Bookscan. […] The book is, in fact, a significant success story as a benchmark of the phenomenon of self-portrait in the digital age.”

There’s definitely a valid point there: despite its apparent financial disappointment, “Selfish” is somewhat revolutionary simply because it’s the first of its kind on the book market today: a literal book of selfies by one of the most famous human beings in the world. The problem, though, is that Kim’s self-portraiture is available for anyone to see at any given time, thanks to the internet. If all her selfies are free on Instagram — and she’s posting brand new ones every day to replace the old — then was “Selfish” really necessary?

Maybe not, but don’t cry for Kim — 32,000 copies isn’t much, but it’s still more than her haters bargained for. Keep those selfies, comin’, Kim!